Berzerk
Platform: GCE Vectrex
Region: USA
Media: Cartridge
Controller: Vectrex Joystick
Genre: Arcade - Action - Sci-Fi
Gametype: Licensed
Release Year: 1982
Developer: GCE
Publisher: GCE
Players: 1 or 2 Alternating
Licensed From: Stern Electronics, Inc.
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You have been sent into a building infested with robots, and must do your best to clear it out. Each rooms has a number of walls through the middle, which restrict your movement. There will be a number of bad guys in the room - on early screens they may be immobile and not shoot at you, but after a few levels they become capable of shooting in multiple directions. You can shoot at them in 8 directions, but can't shoot diagonally while moving. There are gaps at the side of each room, through which you exit, before or after clearing the room (there is a bonus for clearance). You get an extra life every 2000 points.

Trivia:

Board game

In 1983, Milton Bradley adapted this video game into a boardgame.

Death

The coin-op version of Berzerk has the distinction of being associated with the first ever "video game death". Jeff Dailey, a 19-year old, suffered a heart attack in January 1981 shortly after playing the game.

References to the game

The famous phrases from the game "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" and "Get the humanoid!" are sampled in the Futurama episode "Fear of a Bot Planet" where they are heard over a loudspeaker and by robots are chasing Fry and Leela. Also in The Simpsons episode "Homer Goes to College", Homer enters a residence where nerds are working at computers and one says "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" while another says "Stop the humanoid!".

Song

Berzerk was popular enough to have a song inspired by it on the full-length Pac-Man Fever album - Goin' Berzerk.

Voices

The coin-op arcade version of Berzerk had digitally recorded dialogue. There were 16 spoken words stored on a small microchip, and they were put together in sequences to create complete sentences such as "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" and "Destroy the humanoid!" This was technologically groundbreaking, but consider the cost. Almost a thousand dollars per word.


http://www.mobygames.com/game/vectrex/berzerk
